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Faith · Who God Is

The Spirit Was Never Tidy

Not a force or an influence, but God Himself, who blows where He wills

Jesus said the plainest thing about the Holy Spirit, and it is a warning against every neat system we try to build around Him: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). The Spirit is not a force we operate, not a doctrine we file, and not a tame influence we summon on schedule. He is God Himself, personal and free, and He has never once fit inside our flowcharts.

He was there from the first verse

The Spirit is not a New Testament newcomer. He is "moving upon the face of the waters" in the second verse of the Bible (Genesis 1:2). He filled Bezalel with skill to build the tabernacle (Exodus 31:3), came mightily upon the judges, Gideon and Samson and the rest (Judges 6:34), and rushed upon David from the day he was anointed (1 Samuel 16:13). David, who knew the Spirit's nearness, prayed the prayer of a man who knew it could be grieved away: "take not thy holy spirit from me" (Psalm 51:11). The Spirit raised a valley of dry bones into a living army (Ezekiel 37:9-14). Moses, worn down from bearing the whole people alone, had longed for the day the Spirit would belong to everyone: "would God that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!" (Numbers 11:29; that longing answered, see The Harvest Is Now). And through Joel God promised that very day, when He would "pour out my spirit upon all flesh" (Joel 2:28), the day Peter said had finally come at Pentecost (Acts 2:16-17).

He is God, not a glow

Here is where a quiet drift happens in much modern talk: the Spirit gets demoted to an "it," a divine energy, a warm feeling, a force. Scripture and the early church will not allow it. The Spirit can be lied to, and Peter says lying to Him is "lied… unto God" (Acts 5:3-4). He speaks, forbids, sends, grieves, and intercedes (Acts 13:2; Ephesians 4:30; Romans 8:26), which an "it" cannot do. The earliest church guarded this. Origen names it as part of what the apostles handed down:

"The apostles related that the Holy Spirit was associated in honour and dignity with the Father and the Son."

Origen, c. 230 · On First Principles

And the church wrote it into the creed it still confesses: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life… who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified" (Nicene Creed, AD 381; see the creeds). Worshipped. You do not worship a force.

Two ways to mishandle Him

Because He is free, there are two opposite errors, and the road runs between them. One is to quench Him, to so wall Him inside our order and our systems that nothing is left for Him to do; Paul says flatly, "Quench not the Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19). The other is to chase every stir and call it the Spirit, mistaking noise and chaos for His presence; to that same restless tendency Paul says, "let all things be done decently and in order" (1 Corinthians 14:40). He surprised everyone at Pentecost, fell on Cornelius and the Gentiles before anyone had planned for it (Acts 10:44-47), and caught Philip clean away (Acts 8:39). He will not be boxed, and He will not be summoned. He is the Lord.

Where this lands

The Spirit is a Person, fully God, given not to be analyzed but to indwell: "know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" (1 Corinthians 6:19). The right response to wind is not to diagram it but to set your sail. So "walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25), keep in step with Him, let Him bear His fruit in you, and hold the mystery with open hands. He was never tidy, and He was never meant to be. He is God, moving where He wills, and the wonder is that He has chosen to make His home in us.

Study the passages

Read them in context. Links go to BibleHub.

Related: The Trinity, The Names of the Holy Spirit, What the Early Church Confessed, Born Again, and The Witnesses. Origen quoted verbatim from the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and the Nicene Creed from its standard English text (both public domain). Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub.